


one-on-one

by flowermasters



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Complicated Relationships, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Hate Sex, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Rough Sex, Sexual Tension, Sparring as foreplay, This is not that fic, Under-negotiated Kink, don't mind me just reinventing the wheel here, i.e. no negotiation lol they'll talk eventually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-07-31 12:33:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20115163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowermasters/pseuds/flowermasters
Summary: “You’ve been pulling your punches,” he says when she kicks him in the ribs.





	one-on-one

**Author's Note:**

> "but flowermasters," you cry, "you've already written so many fics about Becho sparring!"
> 
> Warnings for: rough sex, like, there is some violence in this, and while it's all consensual, it's not negotiated.

Bellamy grows increasingly more frustrated.

With every strike she lands, he huffs like a bull, his expression darkening. She’s too quick for him, generally speaking, even before this hour, when exhaustion has caught up with him and slowed his movements. He’s not making easy mistakes yet, but he will be soon. Sparring is the only dance Echo really knows, and right now her partner is lumbering through his steps.

“You’ve been pulling your punches,” he says when she kicks him in the ribs.

“What?” Echo says, backing away, mostly to build up ground for another charge but partly in confusion. They circle each other, restless. The floor is cool under her bare feet; they’ve long since moved from the sparring mat, one bout bleeding into another so that neither of them have really noticed except when they’ve hit the floor. 

“You heard me,” he says, raising his fists, holding them loosely in front of himself. It had only taken her a few days into this routine they’ve developed over the past month to realize that Bellamy prefers a good brawl, which she finds amusing. It suits him, with his muscular bulk. He outweighs her, which is one reason why she doesn’t let him close when they fight.

He doesn’t have a natural aptitude for footwork, nor for swordplay, but he can be taught. Anyone can. Echo knows the truth of that.

She elects not to argue with him. “Come closer,” she says, reaching up to brush a strand of hair out of her face, “and we’ll see.”

He doesn’t take the bait, so they continue to circle one another. “Sooner or later, you’ll make a mistake,” Bellamy says, watching her. “Everyone does.”

“Yes,” Echo agrees. “But how will you react when I do?”

He rolls his eyes, as he often does when she attempts to teach him something. Too proud for his own good, among other things. She feints to the left, and he falls for it; foolish, as he leaves his right side wide open for another kick, this one to his flank. He tries to catch her leg, his fingers scrabbling at her calf, but she whips out of reach.

Bellamy grins at her, but there’s not much pleasure in it. His curls are damp with sweat, his face flushed, chest heaving. “Alright. Point taken.”

“You’re tired,” Echo says, not unkindly. “It makes you clumsy.”

“I’m not tired,” Bellamy snaps. “Surely not any more than you are.” 

Perhaps. Echo is tired, although she’s so used to fighting through exhaustion that it’s satisfying in a strange way. The heaviness of her limbs and the dull ache in her shoulder mean she’ll sleep soundly tonight, in a way she rarely does on nights when they don’t spar.

They’ve taken to sparring after everyone else goes to sleep out of convenience, both for themselves and the others. Neither of them much enjoy having an audience, especially not one inclined to give commentary. 

There’s also the fact that the others don’t—understand. They don’t _ get it_, as Bellamy would say. Why anyone would _ want _ to fight. Why they would turn to this to break up the monotony of days that never really become nights.

Bellamy rushes her, but she dodges his blow. She has an opening for a strike, right to his throat, but instead she sweeps his feet out from under him with a kick. She should end this. Worn-out and frustrated, Bellamy is hopelessly outclassed; it would be a kindness to finish this. But she doesn’t. When the bout is over, then her own exhaustion will sink in, and it will be time to go to bed and live the same day all over again. 

Bellamy scrambles to his feet, but she’s already dancing away from him. “Seriously. Are you going easy on me?”

“No,” Echo says. Snaps at him, really. Perhaps her own temper has grown shorter than she thought. “That defeats the purpose of the exercise.”

“It’s like you’re afraid to—let go,” Bellamy says. “Quit being so scared you’re gonna hurt me. I can take it.” 

Echo swallows hard and the taste in her mouth is bitter. She can’t remember a time where she’d ever been scared to hurt someone, especially while sparring. Not in years, certainly. The idea alone is insulting. “You were the one who said there had to be rules.” 

_We have to be careful_, he’d said, weeks ago when they first started doing this. _We_ _don’t want anybody getting hurt._

“Well, I changed my mind,” Bellamy says, brow furrowing. He looks angry, but it’s strange; Echo can’t quite figure out if he’s angry with _ her_. He would’ve abandoned this exercise long ago if he truly couldn’t stand to be around her. At some point they’ve stopped moving, but his muscles are still tensed, knees slightly bent. “Just—fight like you mean it. No holds barred.”

He springs forward, but Echo could’ve seen him coming from a mile away. This time, they manage hand-to-hand for a few seconds. He deflects two of her blows, but catches the last in his ribs. His chest is broad, solid, and strong; he could take worse than even she could give. Echo isn’t scared of hurting him. It occurs to her, fleetingly, that she might be scared to touch him at all.

“Come on, you can do better than that,” Bellamy grits out, swinging wide. She dodges, stepping easily out of reach. “_Hit _ me, goddamn it.”

Echo makes a wordless noise of frustration, lunging forward with the intent to feint again, only this time Bellamy doesn’t fall for it. He catches her hard around the middle and momentum sends them spinning, but he doesn’t let go, holding tight as she bucks against his hold. His arm is tight around her ribcage, pinning her to him, back to chest; suddenly his other hand is in her hair, gripping at the base of her loose braid. She jerks, and his grip tightens. No holds barred, indeed.

Echo goes still, panting. She’s crouching slightly, knees bent, back curved. Bellamy has gone still, too, but neither of them have come close to going slack.

It would be a simple thing, she realizes suddenly. To relax into his hold, into the sensation of being held by him. His breath comes in hot puffs against her neck. Her tank top sticks to her back; she can tell his shirt is damp with sweat. There’s no space left between them. Still he holds on. He could do anything to her like this, and she could let him. They could—they could—

“Yield?” he prompts, voice ragged. Strong as he is, it’s costing him something to stay frozen like this, unsure of her next move. Echo can taste a faltering resolve like a scent on the breeze.

She says nothing. “Echo,” Bellamy says, in her ear, slackening his grip on her hair, “I’m—”

She doesn’t give him time to feel her muscles tense. Her center of gravity is lower than his like this, and she uses it to her advantage; pitching forward into a crouch, she hardly feels his weight as she slings him over herself.

He lands on his back, hitting the floor hard enough that Echo can feel the vibration of the impact under her feet. She doesn’t hesitate, dropping down and driving her knee none-too-gently into his chest. He has no air left in his lungs to expel, but he wheezes anyway. She doesn’t knee him as hard as she could have, wary of lasting injury, but she leaves her knee there, pressing firm as she looks down at his face.

He gasps for breath, staring up at her with wide, dazed eyes. She allows this for a few seconds, then shifts her weight, reducing the pressure on his chest. Her skin prickles; something squirms within her, nervous energy, fear that she’s gone too far and—curiosity, of all things. She wonders if she’s gone far enough.

“Try to breathe slowly,” Echo says, hyperaware that she’s still crouching over him. She braces herself to stand, tensing the muscles in her legs, and yet she stays where she is. “It will pass.”

“Easy for you to say,” Bellamy manages hoarsely. “Fuck. You could have broken your neck with that move.”

She’d never been in any real danger. She’s certain of that much. “Was that what you wanted of me?” she asks. 

_ Move, fool_, she tells herself, and yet she doesn’t. To Bellamy, she urges silently: _ Push me off_. Yet he doesn’t. 

“Something like it,” he says, pushing up onto his elbows, but not roughly enough to disturb her. When she reaches up to brush hair off of her damp neck, he follows the moment of her hand with his eyes. She must look every bit as mussed and sweaty as he does, hair now fallen from its braid, but he watches her with dark, unreadable eyes. 

It would be simple for him to throw her off, hardly any effort at all. She’s close enough, and unguarded enough, that he could wrestle her and take back the upper hand easily. But that’s not what Bellamy wants; nothing so simple as that.

She doesn’t know what to do when he kisses her. She sees it coming, of course, maybe even before Bellamy decides to do it, but she’s still unprepared for it. Echo goes still, her awareness simplifying down to sensations; his lips on hers, the rise and fall of his chest, the sound of an air vent rattling just above them. 

Then he pulls away. Echo opens her eyes; she doesn’t remember making the decision to close them. Bellamy is frowning slightly, his jaw clenching then unclenching. Uncertain, she decides. Maybe nervous. But too bull-headed to turn back now. “Echo?” he says.

She leans down to kiss him, almost intending to steady him, or maybe to soothe, but it turns rougher. He sucks on her lower lip and fists a hand in her hair, and she runs her hands over his shoulders, his chest. She wants his clothes off, she wants everything off, but she’s not sure how to go about getting it; sparring she can do, but she’s out of her depth here.

This time when Bellamy pulls away, it’s slowly. They’re both breathing heavily—slower than they were when they were fighting, but deeper, huskier. He looks up at her for a moment, studying her with his brow furrowed, but she doesn’t have a chance to school her expression before he releases her hair and lets his hand fall to her hip. “Take these off,” he says, touching the waistband of her pants, “and get up here.”

Wordless, Echo shifts to pull off her leggings; she gets one leg free and then stops abruptly, aware that Bellamy is still watching her with that dark expression, desire and aggression and something deeper, something she’d need more distance to analyze. 

Then he takes hold of her hips, and says, “Okay?” At her nod, he hauls her forward, bodily, heedless of the gasp she lets out into the open space.

He licks into her, slowly at first, and she grabs hold of his hair almost instinctively. She’s already slick; she’s not sure when that happened, and she flushes, hot all over with embarrassment and pleasure. “Bellamy,” she says faintly, not sure why, and he tightens his grip on her hips in response. 

No one’s ever done this to her before—Echo can’t think of anyone who she would’ve allowed to, until now. She’s fallen into some state where she acts completely without thinking. A part of her is terrified of the feeling, but the rest of her can’t comprehend anything else. Bellamy licks at her until the muscles in her thighs begin to tremble, until she tightens her hold on his curls and says, voice gone almost guttural, “More.”

He digs his fingers into the flesh of her thighs, pulling her more firmly against his tongue, and sucks at her; she comes quickly after that, raising one hand to her mouth and whimpering embarrassingly against her palm. He keeps at it until she comes again, short and sudden and almost painfully good, good enough that she almost forgets to be afraid of it.

She lets go of his hair, aware that if her wrist is starting to cramp, this must not be comfortable for him, either. She can hear him breathing, ragged and noisy, and she lifts herself off him and moves to one side of him with legs that shake like a foal’s. He opens his eyes, lifts up onto his elbows, and watches dazedly as she slips back into her leggings and kneels beside him on folded legs. His mouth is shiny-slick.

Echo licks her own lips. She’s out of her depth here, it’s true, but she has sense enough for this. She reaches for the zipper of his pants, where she can see him straining against the material; when her fingers brush against him he shivers, just a little but all over, and Echo feels another wash of heat flood through her. 

Then he catches her wrist, stilling her hand. Echo looks up at his face, too startled at first to even feel ashamed. Bellamy is giving her that look again, hot enough to sear. “You won this round,” he says, by way of an explanation.

Echo swallows, then nods, holding his gaze. When she speaks, her voice has almost returned to the way she likes it to sound; detached, unaffected. “Next time, then.”

Bellamy nods once, then moves to get up. The sharp edge of his smirk promises the next bout will be even harder-won. Echo thrills at the challenge.


End file.
